Victims of Tube falls and bus crashes have accused Transport for London and Mayor Sadiq Khan of not doing enough to ensure passenger safety.
They called for Government intervention “to ensure TfL addresses safety issues and reports serious incidents more openly” – and said the Office for National Statistics should review the way TfL publishes safety data.
They believe that lessons are not being learned from similar incidents – and that many other “near misses” are left to go under the radar.
They used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain annual figures of the number of incidents on London Underground platforms each year – showing a 30 per cent increase since Mr Khan, who chairs the TfL board, took office in 2016.
Separate TfL figures show that about 20 people a month are being seriously injured or killed on board or by London buses, most recently a man in his nineties who was hit by a bus near Victoria station on Tuesday afternoon.
A total of 86 people died or were seriously injured in bus collisions between January and March this year, and 68 between April and June.
Sarah de Lagarde, who suffered the traumatic amputation of her right arm and right leg when she was struck by two Tube trains at High Barnet station in September 2022, told a central London press conference on Wednesday: “I have serious concerns about TfL’s commitment to safety.
“These are not one-off isolated freak events. They’re symptomatic of a broken system. Somebody else could be seriously injured or killed. To my horror, it’s happened again and again and again.”
According to TfL, the number of “platform train interface (PTI) incidents” across the Underground rose to 1,941 in 2023, up almost 500 on the figure in 2016.
Last year’s total included 261 “falls between platform and train”. Of these, two were classed as “serious”, down from a peak of 34 serious injuries in 2019 – though the definition of what constituted a serious injury was tightened in 2020.
On average, 21 people a month are involved in a PTI. These include falls from the platform, falls between the train and the platform, contact between a person and a train and being caught in or struck by train doors, also known as “trap and drag incidents”.
These figures were obtained by law firm Leigh Day in the course of investigations into the legal cases being brought by Ms de Lagarde and the family of Catherine Finnegan, who was killed in a bus crash near Victoria station in January.
Ms de Lagarde said: “We started paying attention and joining the dots and the big picture is terrifying.”
She accused TfL of “victim blaming”, being defensive and showing a “lack of empathy or understanding”. She added: “I’m still waiting for an apology from Sadiq Khan.”
The campaigners claimed that London had a worse record on bus safety than cities such as New York, Paris and Montreal.
Sally Sivas, next of kin of Catherine Finnegan, known by her family as Kathleen, said Mr Khan had said in an interview: “I have no concerns about safety.”
She said: “That phrase was said by Sadiq Khan on January 30. Kathleen Finnegan was killed by a London bus at Victoria station on January 29.
“Kathleen had only just been killed the previous day. This was a ridiculous and insensitive statement for the chair of TfL to make.
“Safety is not their top priority, as many near misses go unreported. TfL must recognise their failings and the need for change.”
Sarah Hope, who founded a TfL helpline for survivors after she and her daughter, then only two, were seriously injured and her mother killed by a “road rage” bus driver at Mortlake in 2007, said the aftermath of the crash was “simply horrendous”.
She said: “No-one from TfL contacted my family and Metroline [the bus company involved] refused to speak to me at all.”
The first person to say “sorry” to her was Boris Johnson in 2014, when she met the then mayor at an event for amputees. She launched the Sarah Hope Line in 2016 but said TfL had stopped promoting it.
“I don’t understand why so few people who are injured or bereaved by TfL activities receive help from the Sarah Hope Line,” she said.
She said Mr Khan, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the Government needed to recognise that road deaths were “just as traumatic, sudden and violent as knife crime and domestic violence”.
Thomas Jervis, a partner at Leigh Day, said: “My clients are deeply concerned by these figures which show a significant rise in the number of deaths and serious injuries on the transport network in London.
“They are now calling on the government to step in to ensure TfL takes urgent action to improve safety and provide much greater transparency in the reporting and presentation of data around serious incidents involving passengers.”
Mr Khan told the Standard: “I raised this with TfL’s management team yesterday, and there cannot be a situation where there appears to be or there is victim blaming, anybody hurt using public transport across London.
“I want to apologise if any family feels that way, some of it for good reason, by the way, they feel that way – that shouldn’t happen. The [TfL] commissioner himself has apologised for that.
“At the same time, we’ve got to reduce the number of injuries in London and people losing their lives. It’s no consolation to me that last year was the lowest numbers of deaths and serious injuries, aside from the pandemic year, because there are still too many people being hurt and seriously injured.
“So we’ve got to make sure we improve. At the same time, when things do go wrong, we can’t, we mustn’t and we never should, victim-blame.”
TfL said almost four million journeys were made each weekday on the Tube, and insisted: “The safety of our staff and customers is our top priority and the Tube is recognised as one of the safest metros around the world.”
It said cameras were being improved to give Tube drivers a clearer view of passengers on platforms, and work had been carried out to reduce some gaps between the train and platform.
In addition, platform announcements and ‘Mind the Gap’ signs were used to highlight potential risks.
TfL’s Vision Zero target is to eliminate road deaths by 2041. As an interim target, it for nobody to be killed on or by a bus by 2030.
Lilli Matson, TfL’s chief safety, health and environment officer, said: “Our thoughts remain with all of those impacted by loss of life and injury on the transport network. Every death and serious incident on the transport network is devastating and we have support available for those affected.
“We are committed to learning from every incident and use a rigorous evidence-based approach to this, using data and incident reports to put in place changes through targeted programmes that make the transport network safer for everyone.
“Accurate reporting and transparency are a vital part of our industry-leading approach to safety and we are committed to making data publicly available, including through our website.
“We recognise that serious incidents on the network should never happen and we are determined to address this by listening to the experiences of those who are affected and taking appropriate action to keep people safe.”